Yet Another Incredible Use Of Chase Ultimate Rewards Points: Transfer To Korean For Flights On Alaska, Hawaiian, Or Emirates!

Chase Ultimate Rewards has some great transfer partners that they transfer to at a 1:1 ratio:Airlines: United (Star Alliance), British Airways (Oneworld), Korean (Skyteam), and Southwest (which can in turn transfer to Airtran).Hotels: Hyatt, Marriott, Priority Club, and Ritz Carlton.Trains: Amtrak.

The most valuable partners in my opinion are United (which never charges fuel surcharges, allows free date changes, has flexible routing rules, allows one-way awards, and has dozens of partners to fly on) and Hyatt (where you can stay in incredible hotels that charge $1,000 per night with awards as low as 5K and up to a maximum of only 22K points per night).

Most foreign carriers tack on huge fuel surcharges on award tickets, however Korean is worth taking a 2nd look at. They are partners with some airlines outside of the Skyteam Alliance that they don’t collect a fuel surcharge on.
These include Alaska, Emirates, and Hawaiian. Here is a link to their non-alliance partner award chart.

Seeing this I looked on AA.com for a first class flight from JFK to Honolulu. By limiting the search on the calendar page to non-stop flights only I was able to narrow the calendar down to only show dates with Hawaiian availability as they have the only nonstop flight in that market (starting in June). On AA.com the first class Hawaiian flight can be found by clicking on the business/first option.

I then called up Korean’s Skypass office in Los Angeles at 800-438-5000 (and then prompts 2, 4, and 0) to confirm the rate. They saw the same availability as I had found on AA.com and confirmed that the round-trip ticket in coach from JFK to Honolulu would be just 30,000 miles and in first would be just 60,000 miles plus $5 tax! Using AA miles it costs 35K to fly coach on Hawaiian off-peak, 45K to fly coach during peak season (which is 03/09-08/21 and 12/16-01/11 annually), and 75K to fly in first, so it’s quite the bargain using Korean miles!

Note that on Hawaiian you pay per segment, so if you want to add an inter-island round-trip to your mainland trip that will add 10,000 miles. If you want to fly from the US to Tahiti or Pago Pago it will be 60,000 in coach or 120,000 in first.

You can also search for Alaska award flights on AA.com using the same method as with Hawaiian. You can fly anywhere in the US, including to Alaska for just 20,000 Korean miles in coach or 40,000 Korean miles in first with no fuel surcharges! That’s 5,000 miles less than AA charges in coach and 10,000 less than AA charges in first!

Plus you are allowed a free stopover when using Korean miles for Alaska. Does this mean you can fly from Los Angeles to Anchorage, stopover there, and then fly to Hawaii? I didn’t try that kind of extreme routing over the phone yet, but if you do then post a comment! At any rate you’ll definitely be able to fly from JFK to Anchorage and stopover in Seattle for as long as you want.

For Mexico the rate is 30,000 Korean miles in coach or 60,000 Korean miles in first with no fuel surcharges. That’s 5,000 miles less than AA charges for the coach flight.

For Hawaii, Alaska flies from all over the west coast and Alaska to Hawaii and it costs just 30,000 Korean miles in coach or 60,000 Korean miles in first with no fuel surcharges. That’s 5,000 miles less than AA charges in coach during off-peak, 15,000 miles less than what AA charges during peak season, and 15,000 less than AA charges in first!

Now it is worth pointing out that for short haul flights like from the west coast to Hawaii or to Mexico on AA or on Alaska you will be better off transferring points to British Airways instead of to Korean. With British Airways there are no fuel surcharges within the western hemisphere and a flight like LAX to Cabo will be just 15,000 miles and a flight from the west coast to any of the Hawaiian islands will be just 25,000 miles. Bear in mind that BA however is not partners with Hawaiian, despite the fact that AA and Korean are partners with them.

Emirates partners with just a small handful of airlines. If you’ve dreamed of flying in an incredible First class suite on the A380 with the ability to even take a shower on the plane than Emirates has the best availability for your dream. You can transfer Starpoints to Emirates, but other than that if you are flush with Ultimate Rewards points you can transfer to Korean to book you on Emirates with no fuel surcharges. To fly round-trip from Toronto or JFK for example to Dubai in a first class suite on the A380 would be 210,000 miles.

From my phone calls today there was little hold time, and although there was a little bit of a language barrier, they were very accommodating with several requests and quoting miles+taxes without even asking for a Korean mileage number.

Now what will happen tomorrow when hundreds of people start transferring points to Korean and calling to book awards?
Your guess is as good as mine!

Reply

April 25, 2012 12:27 am

Fan of Dan

Dan!
Going to Dubai?

Reply

April 25, 2012 2:12 am

Abe

Hi Dan,

I’m very new to this mileage thing, and I appreciate your posts!.

I have a question, I have almost 60,000 miles on a chase sapphire preferred with the first year almost ending soon (annual fee coming soon…) plus I have about 5000 ultimate rewards points on several chase cards, What would be the best thing to do since I plan to travel NYC to London by the end of August and would like to connect to Israel (5-6 days) or before or after the London trip.

How did u select non-stop on aa.com when trink JFK-HNL. I dont see the option even in calendar view.

Reply

April 25, 2012 12:29 pm

Isaac

@Abe: transfer all your chase points to your sapphire card and have them all in one account (its easy just go to combine points) and then if you have 80k and united has availability then transfer them in.

@Tassojunior:
Sure is!
Now let’s see who will be able to get Korean to book the craziest Alaska stopover award for the fewest amount of miles!

Reply

April 25, 2012 11:16 pm

jo

Very interested in the Korean/Hawaii deal from NY, but naive and confused. You say you found the Hawaiian Airline flight by looking for the only non-stop. But if I’m willing to do stopovers/connections in order to get a 30,000 mile trip, how do I know which Hawaiian Airlines flight have eligible seats available for any particular set of dates? Does Korean Airlines charge to call and just ask about a set of dates? And do they allow a stopover. Thanks so much!

Reply

April 25, 2012 11:47 pm

Tassojunior

Non-stop Hawaiian JFK-HNL for 60K rt in First Class.

You NY’ers, especially the honeymoon types, should be eating that up.

Reply

April 25, 2012 11:50 pm

ILoveURPoints

Awesome..although I’m a little confused if you don’t live in NYC or Houston..so if I am leaving from RDU does it cost more miles to use to go RDU-JFK-HNL? Do most people just buy the ticket to JFK (In this case example I could alsouse 9000 BA miles RT to get to NYC?(lga).. Thanks

Reply

April 26, 2012 1:16 am

silver springer

Great post Dan!
Two questions:
–can you get a one-way AS award SEA-DCA and what would it cost in economy and first
–I have an aspirational trip to go to Maldives as well. What would be the points and cost for Emirate from the DC area in business and first (assume at least part of trip would be in A380)
Thanks

Reply

April 26, 2012 7:51 am

Dan

@jo:
Korean doesn’t allow connections/stopovers on Hawaiian, nor are there even any connections available from JFK to HNL on Hawaiian.
If you want to book a partial AA and partial Hawaiian ticket it would need to be with AA miles.

@ILoveURPoints:
Correct, you have to get a Hawaiian or Alaska air gateway city.
Using BA miles to get to a city that they serve (which you can find on their route map) is a great idea.

@silver springer:
One-ways are not allowed by Korean.
If you want a one-way you should use AA miles.

You would need to add the cost to fly from the US-UAE (70/140/210) and then UAE-Maldives (35/70/105).
If you have a lot of Starpoints it would be more cost effective to use those to transfer to Emirates where you wouldn’t need as many miles.

Reply

April 26, 2012 10:14 am

joseph

Dan – I want to do LAX-SEA(stop few days)-YVR(Destination)-LAX
Is that possible?? Thanks.

Reply

April 26, 2012 10:47 am

Dan

@joseph:
Absolutely!
Check for nonstop availability on each of those routes separately on AA.com and then call Korean to book.

Reply

April 26, 2012 10:54 am

mike

i found about these redemptions last year and made some posts on FT but had no response to anyone who had actually attempted these redemptions. when i read the Korean website i recall it said you had to go into a Korean Air service center to book partner flights. that seemed ridiculous to me, so im glad to see you can book over the phone. i am most interested in Alaska from west coast to Hawaii. i rec’d a fairly decent targeted cc offer from Korean last year and that is when I started lookin around for more info.

Reply

April 26, 2012 6:00 pm

Daniel

Is the Chase Sapphire preferred MasterCard made of metal now? I saw somewhere you said they converted your card but it was lacking the Metal that the preferred Visa was made out of. Let me know weather I should convert the card. I just got both the regular sapphire and sapphire preferred both as Visa’s.

Reply

April 27, 2012 3:09 pm

Dan

@Daniel:
It is made of metal.
They had mistakenly downgraded me to the non-preferred version which isn’t metal and then they upgraded me to the preferred metal version again.

Reply

April 27, 2012 3:12 pm

Daniel

@Dan: Alsome so I will be converting to the preferred World MasterCard now I assume I should wait till I reach my 3,000 in spend first and my 50k bonus comes thru because I am half way there already. I am so happy this summer I will be renting a Car in Israel B”H” now I don’t have to pay F.T? fees on my rental car while taking advantage of the World M.C. Insurance. Which insurance can I decline and which one will they charge me for? fYI its at Budget or Thrifty I have reservations at both the same prices this way I’m covered.

Reply

April 27, 2012 3:40 pm

Dan

@Daniel: You can decline CDW but they will force you to buy liability at about $15 per day.
Did you ask Noach if he can beat your quote?

Reply

April 27, 2012 3:47 pm

Ally

I want to travel on Korean using Hawaiian points. Does Hawaiian’s business class (only first class option) translate to Korean’s prestige class or first class? These are code shared flights on Hawaiian’s website, but operated by Korean Air.

Reply

April 30, 2012 5:59 am

Toby

Want to accrue miles to get to airline tickets from CLE or CAK exclusively, focusing on tickets to Israel. Which credit card or combination of cards is the best to get?

Reply

July 29, 2012 11:52 am

Joshua

Dan, is there a good way to check availability of Alaskan award tickets? I attempted to call Korean and they stated there was no availability for my requested dates. However, when I check on the Alaskan site their lowest fare shows available.

Sorry if it s a dumb question. Are you saying I transfer my UR points to Korean and then buy an award ticket from Korean while the actual flight is on Alaska for example?

I have ~55K UR points and ~5K starwood points and would like to buy round trip tickets from San Diego to Hawaii for me and my wife. Do you think it’s possible? I plan to travel in March which is the cheapest time I think.

Though from SAN you would be better off transferring to BA as they charge only 25K round-trip on Alaska to Hawaii.
Call BA to book that.

Reply

October 23, 2013 12:21 am

Mohammad

@Dan: Do I need to created to BA rewards accounts and transfer 25K to each? and buy two tickets separately?

Reply

October 23, 2013 12:51 am

Dan

@Mohammad:
You can transfer 50K to one BA account and book them both from there.

Reply

October 23, 2013 12:54 am

Junkyardunz

Link is dead

Reply

December 30, 2013 6:46 pm

Nick

Hi There –

I recently flew Business with Emirate and got 40k Skyward miles, I have about 65k miles with Chase Sapphire Preferred. How can I transfer those to Emirates ? Do I have to xfer them to Korean ? in that case would Korean will be away of my 40k miles currently in Skyward with Emirate ?

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